Kevin O Neill

Too bad for Northwestern on getting Kevin O'Neill. He has Rick Pitino's ego, John Chaney's potty mouth, Gene Sullivan's results, Dick Versace's hair, Tom Trebelhorn's public relations sense, Lute Olson's loyalty, Mike Ditka's thick skin and Bob Huggins' academic standards. The team that Mike Deane put on the floor for Marquette this year had better results than any of the five teams O'Neill put together at Marquette. Unlike O'Neill's teams, they won some games they should have lost.

Moments after Purdue's Robbie Hummel sank a baseline jumper to beat Northwestern in January, ESPN analyst Dan Dakich thought he saw a ghost. From his courtside chair, the former Indiana interim coach observed a sheet-white Bill Carmody. "I've never seen a human being look more sick," Dakich said. "And I was with Coach (Bob) Knight (for 16 seasons as a player and assistant). It told me all I need to know about his drive. Anyone who thinks Bill is just riding it out is crazy. " The image contrasts...

Detroit Pistons assistant Kevin O'Neill will be the next coach of the Toronto Raptors, sources told the Toronto Sun. An announcement could come Monday. O'Neill, 46, was an assistant with the New York Knicks before joining the Pistons. He was head coach at Northwestern, Tennessee and Marquette.

The Raptors' media guide describes Kevin O'Neill as intense, focused, competitive, demanding, direct, tough. Apparently, they forgot philosophic. "If this doesn't work out, I'll be happy going back to being an assistant again," O'Neill said Tuesday night. "Coaching to me is coaching." Toronto hired O'Neill, 46, in June after he made the jump from college coaching to serve on Jeff Van Gundy's staff in New York for one season and Rick Carlisle's staff in Detroit for the last two. Those...

Kevin O'Neill did well on his first signing day as Northwestern's coach, but his job will get a lot easier if he can persuade a star to land in Evanston. Northwestern is in the hunt for Cedric Patton, a 6-foot-7-inch forward from Huntsville, Ala., and one of the best players in the country. Patton is considering offers from Northwestern, Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia, Vanderbilt and LSU. "He doesn't have a preference right now," said his coach, Ronnie...

Detroit Pistons assistant Kevin O'Neill will be the next coach of the Toronto Raptors, sources told the Toronto Sun. An announcement could come Monday. O'Neill, 46, was an assistant with the New York Knicks before joining the Pistons. He was head coach at Northwestern, Tennessee and Marquette.

The Raptors' media guide describes Kevin O'Neill as intense, focused, competitive, demanding, direct, tough. Apparently, they forgot philosophic. "If this doesn't work out, I'll be happy going back to being an assistant again," O'Neill said Tuesday night. "Coaching to me is coaching." Toronto hired O'Neill, 46, in June after he made the jump from college coaching to serve on Jeff Van Gundy's staff in New York for one season and Rick Carlisle's staff in Detroit for the last two. Those...

Northwestern's basketball team is not expected to be anything to shout about this season. Or curse about, for that matter. Bill Carmody, the Wildcats' new coach, has heard all the stories about how former coach Kevin O'Neill changed the school colors from purple to blue with his salty language during practices and games. Carmody envisions a kinder, gentler approach. "I think I'm a pretty good guy to play for," he said. "The school newspaper asked one of the players, Winston Blake, about my...

Mike Deane, who coached Siena to third place in this year's NIT, was named Friday as Marquette's coach. "People said it would be tough for me to follow in the footsteps of Al McGuire and Kevin O'Neill, but those are the reasons I wanted to come here," Deane said at a news conference. "I see Marquette as a gigantic step forward professionally for me." McGuire coached Marquette to the NCAA championship in 1977. O'Neill rejuvenated the program in his five seasons and took the Warriors to two...

Now that coach Kevin O'Neill has resigned, many Northwestern followers probably are resigned to a bleak basketball future. If O'Neill bailed, why would any coach with any credentials even consider trying to turn around a program with such strict academic standards? Athletic Director Rick Taylor "married up" when he landed O'Neill. O'Neill had rebuilt Marquette and had recruited probably the SEC's most talented team at Tennessee. O'Neill was a friend of Bobby Knight, a close...

The Gary Barnett football coaching rumors have ended at Northwestern. The Kevin O'Neill basketball coaching rumors have just begun. First there was the March rumor that O'Neill was a candidate to return to Marquette, where he coached from 1989-94, followed by this week's rumor that O'Neill is a candidate for the Minnesota coaching vacancy. "There's absolutely nothing to those (Minnesota) rumors," Northwestern Athletic Director Rick Taylor said Wednesday, speaking from Pennsylvania where...

Kevin O'Neill never hid his aspirations. He admitted he wanted to work in the NBA in 1997 while interviewing for the Northwestern coaching job he left Friday morning to join the New York Knicks as an assistant coach. "I made no secret of it," he said. "It's where you coach the best players, play the most games, and it's all basketball." Because of this, Wildcats Athletic Director Rick Taylor wasn't surprised with O'Neill's departure. "He was very upfront with me when I hired him, that that...

Two of the four players leaving Northwestern's basketball team have chosen new schools. Freshman center Brody Deren is moving on to Creighton and sophomore forward Steve Lepore is headed to Wake Forest. Their places will be taken by Casey Cortez out of Danville, Calif., and Andrew Long of Houston, who have signed letters of intent with the school. Lepore announced his intentions Tuesday and Deren confirmed his Wednesday. Deren refused to discuss why he is abandoning Northwestern,...

Two of the four players leaving Northwestern's basketball team have chosen new schools. Freshman center Brody Deren is moving on to Creighton and sophomore forward Steve Lepore is headed to Wake Forest. Their places will be taken by Casey Cortez out of Danville, Calif., and Andrew Long of Houston, who have signed letters of intent with the school. Lepore announced his intentions Tuesday and Deren confirmed his Wednesday. Deren refused to discuss why he is abandoning Northwestern,...

If Marquette were a circus, it would have no trapeze. Elephants, yes. Wire-walkers, no. Fire-eaters? Forget it. Oh, maybe a few dinosaurs. Of the 16 teams left in the NCAA tournament, Marquette is the least worthy of charging admission. "They're a throwback," said Kentucky's Rick Pitino, losing coach on Sunday to the Jurassics from Milwaukee. The actual throwback count for Marquette is five. That is the number of passes required before any shot is taken by a...

Kevin O'Neill brought the actual money figure up. Two million. Dollars. "I'd hang glide naked off Mt. Everest for $2 million," he said. That is to say, if there is another job out there, one that doesn't drain the blood nightly, one that doesn't exasperate O'Neill into pulling out his hair while he still has enough to pull, say as an assistant on an NBA bench or, well, jumping off a mountain, O'Neill might just take it. This calls to...

It is with much sadness that I bring news of the demise of the old Kevin O'Neill. The new Kevin O'Neill has vowed to cut down on his swearing. As far as I'm concerned, this is like Marge Schott trying to give up cigarettes, but if Northwestern's basketball coach says he's going to stop cursing, then let's take him at his word, though I suspect that word is composed of four letters. This is a little hard to take because O'Neill is a curser of epic proportions. And creative?

Kevin O'Neill is, by nature, restless. This isn't a fidgety, shift-in-your-seat restlessness or a cabin-fever restlessness, the kind that a weekend at the beach would solve. This is Kevin O'Neill restlessness, the kind that starts in the heart, heads for the brain and makes a man want to walk. It's an adventurer's restlessness, really, telling O'Neill to go. Go where? Go somewhere. O'Neill doesn't know how long he will stay around as Northwestern's basketball coach, but the odds are he won't...

Kevin O'Neill is still scratching his head about this whole gene pool thing. He has two Eschmeyers on his Northwestern basketball team. Evan, a first-team all-Big Ten pick last year, is 6 feet 11 inches tall. His brother, Jeff, a walk-on, is 6 feet. O'Neill is asked how this could happen in one family and, more to the point, to one basketball coach. "I don't know. I'm (angry)," he said, laughing. "If we could get him to grow a little bit, we'd be all right." The Wildcats need a huge growth spurt...

It is with much sadness that I bring news of the demise of the old Kevin O'Neill. The new Kevin O'Neill has vowed to cut down on his swearing. As far as I'm concerned, this is like Marge Schott trying to give up cigarettes, but if Northwestern's basketball coach says he's going to stop cursing, then let's take him at his word, though I suspect that word is composed of four letters. This is a little hard to take because O'Neill is a curser of epic proportions. And creative?